Assembling U-noa's?

Well, I bought mine assembled but I have since taken her apart and restrung her because I wanted her to have the large bust piece. It's really easy to put them together, especially if you have a stringing tool. But I think currently you can only get them in kit form during the preorder period and not painted and assembled.

 

I bought my Lusis in a kit form, and she was super-easy to put together. All you really need is some good strong superglue (mine was a two-part epoxy that I easily found at a local crafty store) and something to pull the elastic through the body with - and the kit comes with a length of thin wire you can use for this very purpose! The only gluing you need to do is with the upper thigh joints, which need their 'tops' glued on.

 

My only comment is don't use regular superglue to join her hips. Epoxy is the way to go. Other than that, it was easy.

Ken

 

The seller offered to assemble my Unoa for free, being a coward i took that option. Upon receving her I can see i shouldn't have been so worried about assembling her, it doesn't look too difficult as others have said above, just a bit fiddly maybe. I half think i probably should have assembled her myself, so i could learn how to do it, and although my Unoa is fine, i'm a little suspicious the seller assembled her in a hurry or something (stringing is loose on one side and thighs look like they were glued a little sloppily) ops:
I'd just say go for which ever one comes your way and strikes your fancy, kit or already assembled. :grin:

 

I've done Erika about three times since I got her two weeks ago and she's *still* too loose. So... u-noas are probably not the best choice if you're not confident...

 

I've restrung dolls umpteen times, and my Unoa is really loose too! I think it's just us being cautious. I need to whack that string out and cut a chunk off it, yes I do

 

Just a note on the too-loose stringing... I'm certain that in the instructions sent along with the kit, they mention a length of elastic that is far too long. I ended up taking a lot off of that measurement, and cut my string down to get rid of loose ends. Zuzu is now at the perfect tension. Don't be afraid to go a LOT tighter than it tells you to if your doll is too floppy!

 

I finally strung my kit Lusis a few weeks ago, and she was a little loose. Now I'm giving her a bigger chest so I'm going to tighten her just a bit. I think RHIAN is right. The instructions give way too much length.

 

Just to follow up on the length of the elastic - I disassembled my Unoa for re-blushing today, and took the opportunity to measure the lengths of both strings.

The longer elastic, which goes through the whole body and the legs, is a loop of 15 inches long. That's from just below the knot to the bottom of the loop - if the whole thing was undone and laid out it'd be 30 inches.

The shorter elastic, which goes through the upper torse and the arms, is a loop of 7 inches long (but would be 14 inches if it wasn't knotted, as above).

I found this gave me the perfect tension for my doll. Hopefully this will be helpful to someone.

 

Thanks for the elastic length. Has anyone sueded the joints? I looked at them and find them very different than Volk's on my MSD. They are not always continuous and very narrow.

I love the U-noa! Can't focus on any other since she arrived.

Jan

 

And how much length should be added in to account for the knots? Knots use a substantial amount of elastic to be created.

 

I didn't undo my elastic to see how long the whole thing was, but my guess is that with the 15 inch loop, the whole thing would be around 21 inches. I made the loop first, with a tape measure handy (if you tie a loose knot you can sort of move it around to get it where you want it), and then trimmed off the excess. But I like to keep my excess long.

 

you should measure from the knot so you don't have to worry about excess.

funny as I did a Unoa boy kit and the measurements were the same as the 2 kits I did for the girls.. I did 15cm for the arms and 48 cm for the body..seemed to work nicely..

 

Would this link help?

 

I got mine a couple of days ago and it wasn't hard. I'm picky though and pretty much cut away her seams and sanded her...they still show but the surface is smooth thinking some seam spray might help...or more sanding lol. I too found the elastic a little loose for the legs at least. the arms are ok for now. Think I might tighten it up by a couple of cms.

I think if you're a perfectionist it might take longer since some of the seams on the hands were a bit off or the tabs on some parts were already snapped off and not at all even (on one part it actually snapped off deeper than the actual piece so I had to cut away around the tab and sand )

 

I recommend Kittywolf13's new tutorial on assembling a Unoa (link was posted above and here it is again):
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?t=183949

I am in the process of assembling my Unoa myself. I've done the rough cleanup of the parts and now I have to sand and string. I am sending out my faceplates because I still have not done a faceup and winter in Pennsylvania is not good weather for spraying MSC.

The only thrifty way to get a Unoa is to wait (wait... wait.....) for a preorder (the last two were 1.5 years apart plus another 6 month wait to receive the kit). If you buy a pretty assembled and faced-up Unoa girl you will probably have to pay 1.5x to 2.5x the cost of a retail kit. And even at retail, a kit is close to $500 including large bust part and shipping (and $150 more on top of that if you live in a country with heavy import fees/taxes and customs).

Since waiting was the only way I could afford one, I waited.

Carolyn